For the next couple of years it is doubtful if a small town like Bicknell will be able to obtain grants for municipal improvement such as downtown expansion; in today’s market a small town must concentrate on holding on to what they have. The Bicknell housing market is not strong and will not be strong for sometime in the future so the town must work daily to maintain its grant for new construction of houses in Bicknell.

Today there is no physical need for new house construction in Bicknell even though it may make a particular neighborhood look new again for at least a few years; people who live next door to a rundown structure are more than happy to allow the city to tear it down with plans to rebuild, but isn’t that teardown actually the responsibility of the owner?

In time it will become apparent to the grant people that Bicknell is a place of a high cost of living and it will be apparent to everybody that the population of Bicknell is in a sharp decline mold. Once this has been established it will only be a matter of time until the grant people start looking for other more productive towns to invest in infrastructure projects; towns with more political clout such as a right republican leaning town not a left leaning democratic town that rarely does anything for itself.

It is certain that this administration does not have the will to work towards reducing the sewer rates in Bicknell no more than it has the will to work to reduce the current property tax rate in Bicknell.

Until the people of Bicknell decide that it is time to elect people who will look closely at the cost overruns in Bicknell the town will continue to shrink in population.
Declining population causes problems like difficulty in obtaining grants, causes the cost per household to rise, removes political clout in both the county and the state, and reduces the possibility of road repair and infrastructure improvements.

The city must work to stop the decline which will require looking forward to a time when the power plant workers have left and electric rates are even higher than they are now or even the possibility of the power plant being simply shut down because the state will not allow the rate increase or the federal government decides to investigate the illegal or at least unwise spending at the plant, either way the people will be gone and that will reduce or end the temporary transit population in Bicknell. Either way the power plant will not produce enough people to help the population of Bicknell much.

Bicknell must do some specific things to slow, stop and reverse the population loss; sewer rates must be reduced at least by half and to do this there are a number of options that can be used with one being expanding the sewer services to the outskirts of Bicknell.

Places around the parks must be annexed and sewer lines attached even as far out as the Oaktown county road. Johnstown is dumping waste and should be attached to the Bicknell sewer plant as it is already mandated by Indiana law. Freelandville is facing a huge plant building cost that will bankrupt their town in the near future and if the Bicknell administration would be willing to work with Freelandville they could also hook up to the Bicknell sewer plant which would benefit both parties as it could save Freelandville as much as 2 or 3 million dollars by the time IDEM get done with them; savings would come from the much lower cost of a few miles of sewer line and a couple pumping stations and it would help Bicknell reduce their rates by simply adding numbers to the list of users when looking at the number of those paying for service compared to the cost of the Bicknell sewer plant payments, Likewise Edwardsport could also be helped in the same way for the same reasons and just as with Johnstown Indiana law requires it.
Of course unlike the last administration who allowed those who would benefit most from building a new sewer plant to negotiate not building a new sewer plant and surprise they could find no reason to not build a new plant; so now maybe it would be possible for this administration to think for themselves and work out agreements with Johnstown, Freelandville and Edwardsport that was not designed to bankrupt our possible partners.

Following this plan Bicknell could cut sewer cost and lower costs would promote growth in Bicknell.

John R. Stanczak